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DIY Electric Race Car

My name is Gabby, and I am a middle school student. Today I will be teaching you how to make a small electric race car. It is very simple if you follow the instructions and get the right materials. I am building mine for a project in school and there are different rules. They include: The car cannot be more than 6.5 cm wide and 18 cm long, it cannot be more than 3v, and it must reach 10 meters in less than 10 seconds.

Step 1: Gather Your Information

Before you build your electric race car, you need to know some basic information first. You will be making a circuit, so you will need to know basic vocabulary to do so. A ciruit is a path where electrons from voltage or a current to make an electric flow. A current is a flow of electric charge. Voltage is the pressure of a circuit's power source that pushes charged electrons. Resistance is the ratio of voltage in an electric current which flows through it. Now you know the definitions, and you can start building your car!

Step 2: Collect Your Materials

For the first step of building you should get the materials you will need to complete this project. The materials I used for the body of the race car include: 2 sets of car wheels, 2 small pieces of tubing, and 3 popsicle sticks. The wheels came from an old toy car that I took apart and they are about 5.5 cm wide. The popsicle sticks will be the base of the car. The tubing and the wheels while make the place for the wheels to spin. The materials for the circuit include: two 1.5v batteries, a battery AAA battery holder, a 3v motor, electrical wire, and a 3v switch. The two 1.5v batteries would equal to 3v. The battery holder would help the ciruit be more secure.The switch is used to control the motor from being on and off. The motor will spin a propeller to move the car. While building, the tools I mostly used were: scissors, hot glue glue, ruler, and a screwdriver.

Step 3: Making the Body of the Car

Now it is time to start building. First, you take 1 popsicle stick and your two pieces of tubing. Hot Glue the tubing to the popsicle stick about 1 inch inward on both sides. This is when you start to make the place for the wheels.

Step 4: Making the Body of the Car

Now it is time to add your wheels. Take one of the wheels off from the metal pole that attatches your wheels together. Slide the metal pole through the tubing. To close the tubing, attatch the other wheel back on the metal pole. Do the same thing on the other tubing.

Step 5: Making the Body of Your Car

Now, take a popsicle stick and cut two pieces from it. The width should be the same as the wheels. Make the piece thinner by cutting a little bit off the side. Glue the pieces on the base popsicle stick. You want to glue it so the width is more than the hieght. Glue the other piece on the opposite side. The popsicle stick pieces should be about two inches inward from the end of the base popsicle stick.

Step 6: Making the Body of the Car

Next, take two more popsicle sticks and glue them across the two pieces of the popsicle sticks from the last step. This should create another base on top of the other. This will be for holding your circuit.

Step 7: Making Your Circuit

After making the body of the car, you have to make your electrical ciruit to make it work. To start off your circuit, take your AAA battery holder and glue it to one of the sides of the car. This will be the back of the car, and make sure the wires are facing inwards.

Step 8: Making Your Circuit

Now, take your switch and glue it next to the battery holder. It doesn't matter which directon it is facing, so you can decide on that.

Step 9: Making Your Circuit

Now, you will use the wires from the battery holder to wrap around the metal connectors of the switch. Make sure the wire of the battery holder is completely connected to the metal of the switch.

Step 10: Making Your Circuit

For the final step of the circuit, you want to take your motor and attatch it to the end of the base. Make sure the wires from the circuit are connected to the motor connectors. The motor should be facing outwards, so it can connect the fan. Your ciruit should be complete and should work.

Step 11: Attatching the Fan

Now you choose the propeller you want to move your car. I used a small propeller from an old fan. I took a piece of tubing and put it through the hole of the propeller. Then, I hot glued the piece of tubing and the propeller to the motor.

Step 12: Your Final Result

After you're done building, you can test your car. When you see how your car moves, you can make anything better that needed to be fixed. My car moved at a normal rate and worked efficiently. Overall, making an electric race car was fun, and I learned new things from it.